Topic: Three baltis

[Kashmiri Bob]

Thought might be better posting my Balti Towers experience here for comparison.  Here goes:

"Welcome to Balti Towers. Famed and sizzling, super Balti Towers are an award-winning family run restaurant who have been established now for 22 years. The recent awards Balti Towers has received include a gold award from The Dudley Council for good food, high standards of food safety, good environmental practices and excellent service which was presented by The Mayor of Dudley.Balti Towers has featured in The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Mercury, Express and Star and as seen on television. Also, visited frequently by different celebrities. A visit to Balti Towers is an experience not to be missed".

http://www.baltitowers.co.uk/

Well, as mentioned, Balti Towers also have a recipe in 100 Best Balti Curries, and to top it off they also market their own balti sauce, available in jars directly from Amazon, and local Co-ops!  Less then 2 miles from me and well within delivery range.  How had I missed this place before?  I set about putting things right last night, picked up the phone, and ordered a fine TA selection.  Sheek kebab starter, Balti chicken (had to be), egg fried rice, and garlic naan.  They were busy and I was given a 1 hr 20 min delivery estimate.  No probs, it was Saturday night after all.  As it turned out my meal arrive in about 40 mins. Entire order photographed immediately upon arrival, as it came.


Sheek kebab (

[Les]

Looking at it Rob,
I think you made the right choice, IN THE BIN, Hello,  is that something the dog left behind. looks really appetizing,  NOT. must have gone to the local Chinese for that rice I reckon.

Les

[mickdabass]

I have been working on a different base.

One I obtained from "The Dark Side."

Had to renew my subscription so I hope its worth it !!!

The main differences are the use of full fat milk and frozen cauliflower florets.
The resultant base looked creamy (suprise suprise  : : ) and smelt a bit strange.

The prawn Balti I made was really nice. Didn't add any rosewater though, but still produced a nice lightly spiced dish. I used the same GM from before (see earlier posts) The creaminess from the base came through nicely. To me it was a definite improvement over the Kushi base and was IMO a step in the right direction.

[Secret Santa]

Balti Towers in Halesowen are mentioned in the book.  Home delivery range for me.  Just had a TA from them.  Unbelievably (really) bad.

Perhaps it was Manuel's turn to cook? 

[goncalo]

They've taken the royal (shahi?) piss there Rob. Chewy's madras always saves the day!

[curryhell]

A not too impressive TA at all there Rob.  I've seen much much better looking food posted by you and others on the forum    One to avoid in future then.  Maybe the chef had an off night, but it all looks pretty dismal compared to what we are able to produce on here.  Maybe Manuel was in the kitchen, and looking at that excuse for rice, Sybil was cooking as well.
Looking forward to further contributions to this thread as the forum seems to have set it sights on achieving "quality" baltis  ;D

[JerryM]

makes our journey even more important.

this is where i'm upto ie what i'm going to try next. the brackets imply a unit which i use to understand the proportions better. the info is essentially lifted from both the Lynette and Birmingham Balti books and adapted to my thought process that balti is a long way from traditional and is much more "english" palette than even BIR.

any thoughts appreciated.

Balti masala mix powder:
1) paprika 10 ml
2) chilli 2.5 ml (0.25)
3) coriander 10 ml (2.5)
4) cumin 5 ml (1)
5) garlic 5 ml (0.5)
6) ginger 2.5 ml (0.3)
7) green cardamom 1.25 ml (0.2)
8 ) methi 5 ml (0.5)
9) bassar 15 ml
10) turmeric 50 ml (0.5)

Balti Chef garam:
1) bay 5 off (1)
2) green cardamom 13 ml (0.25)
3) anis 5 off segment
4) cinnamon 5x5 cm (20)
5) aniseed 25 ml (0.5)
6) fennel 12.5 ml (0.3)
7) mint 7.5 ml (0.2)
8 ) ajwain 2.5 ml (0.1)
9) pimento 10 ml (0.25)
10) Rose petal

Base balti sauce
Veg oil
Onion 1000g (6 medium)
Garlic 2 cloves (5%)
Ginger 1 inch (5%)
Cumin 5 ml
Coriander 10 ml
Chilli 2.5 ml
Turmeric 2.5 ml
Balti chef garam 5 ml (6%)
Methi 5 ml (4%)
Paprika 5 ml
Tin toms 200 g (20%)
Tom puree 15 ml
Green cardamom 5 off
Bay 2 off
Anis 1 off
water 300 ml

[Peripatetic Phil]

the brackets imply a unit which i use to understand the proportions better.

Could you possibly explain these mysterious units a little more fully, Jerry.  Do they incorporate (for example) a measure of the "strength" of a spice, so that equal volumetric measures of two spices of widely different "strengths" would thus have significantly different values in the "units" column ?

** Phil.

[fried]

I have to confess that my only experiment with Balti cooking (one of my first 'real' curry cooking experiences in fact) was using the GM from PChapman's Balti curry cookbook. I don't know if my measurements were skewiff but the resulting curries were really heavy on the cloves.

I don't use cloves in my normal GM (zaal) and only use them in Pilau rice or as whole spices when making more traditional fare.

Any thoughts on there inclusion? I'm intrigued by Balti cooking, as I originally come from the curry wonderland of Hertfordshire where a Balti was exactly the same as any other curry.

I've heard people talk in hushed whispers about the Birmingham Baltis but unfortunatly missed the boat on that. I find it hard to understand the exact difference in taste between Balti and standard BIR.

[Kashmiri Bob]

Great ideas/work on the balti Mick and Jerry.  We'll get there eventually.  Froze down tea spoon sized portions of the Balti Tower's sauce from the other night.  Their Just-Eat feedback is impressive and they have been around a while. But no way was that balti I had cooked properly.  I think that's even evident from the pic posted.  Just had another taste of it tonight and I swear the sauce (base) is crammed with different veg.  It tasted almost like a can Heinz veg soup!  I'll see if I can get a jar of their commercial balti sauce for comparison.

Rob